epiphany

I made a discovery yesterday. Well, actually it was more of an epiphany. I realized that my fear of intense, sad emotions comes from that experience with my former sponsor. See, my theory is that I was in a depression after she told me being lesbian was not normal and was going to get me drunk. Makes perfect sense to me that hearing that from someone I thought was not only my sponsor but my best friend of eight years would leave a few scars. But I never realized until recently how deeply I was hurt and how far I went to stop the pain. I think that after I began to see the light of day again I was so fearful of being caught up in the pain and sadness again that I recoiled from ANYTHING that looked like sad. I had no idea. Really. Which I consider to be amazing, cause if you'd have asked me about it I would have told you. If I trusted you...I might have told you the whole sordid story. But, therein lies the problem. After that happened I trusted no one. I told no one what was going on. My Deep Self went into hiding for a long time. She was terrified of being hurt again. I do hope that if something like that would happen again I would have the presence and sense of self to say, *Fuck you. It's none of your business.* and not let it take me so far down. But, the thing is, it wasn't just what was said, but who said it. For fuck sake, the woman was my SPONSOR! For eight years!! I had no indication that she felt that way. No wonder I'm so big on honesty now. If you don't like my slifestyle, tell me before we start a relationship. Before I get tangled up in caring what you think. Just so ya know, my sponsor now is far more open and I am not her only lesbian sponsee. I checked that and her out for a long time before I asked. And just in case, I have a gay man as a second sponsor. Just in case there should be another scene in which I am attacked for who I am. Yep, better safe than sorry. Plus, he's got more time than my other sponsor. Huh! No, I am not as naive or as trusting as I once was. File that one under *Live and Learn*. Unfortuantely I was hurt so badly that it took me eight years to come to grips with it. Probably for the best. I didn't start to work on this until I had a new support system and even then it took about a year to work it's way to the surface. Was that my subconscious protecting me or just me being in denial. Perhaps a little of both. I couldn't start to work on this until I had started to try and trust people again and realized that I didn't. I thought I was pretty trusting. No, I was just surface friendly. I still am. I'll pretty much talk to anybody. But it took a lot of work to start to share what was really going on and what had happened to damage my trust. After all, I had shared my whole life with this woman and she informed me that I was not normal and would get drunk unless I *just found a guy and got laid*. Really. Well, here I am with 16 years and 10 months sober. That's 8 years and 10 months since she told me my lifestyle would get me drunk! So, HA!